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Coronavirus in Iran: Regime Culpability and Resiliency

(Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Mehdi Khalaji - On paper, the Iranian regime's defining traits seem like a self-destructive combination: declining domestic credibility, international isolation, minimal competence to carry out its basic duties, ceaseless use of violence to maintain control, and an exhausting, defiant, utopian push to expand its hegemony abroad. Yet even if the regime founders, the damage it has done to Iranian society leaves little hope for a smooth, speedy transition to a democratic, relatively U.S.-friendly state in the near term. The public is struggling with a profound social trust deficit, the disintegration of shared values, and deep burnout after years of regime aggression and humiliation. Many citizens are focused on just surviving, and have adopted deeply cynical worldviews that create a disturbing sense of living in a lawless space rather than a functioning nation. In all likelihood, only a small subset of actors would be able to fill the vacuum that follows the regime's ultimate collapse - namely, existing factions that already hold the keys to Iran's military arsenal and prisons. Such a replacement government would hardly choose to denounce the defiant anti-Western animosity that has been Khamenei's calling card. The writer, a Qom-trained Shiite theologian, is a fellow at The Washington Institute.
2020-03-13 00:00:00
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